America increases visa application fee from June 4

Tuesday, 25 May 2010, 21:21 IST
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Washington: The U.S. has announced today that it will increase the fee of issuing non-immigrant visas in all categories with effect from June 4 so as to meet its increasing processing cost. "The Department is increasing fees to ensure sufficient resources to cover the rising cost of processing non-immigrant visas," the State Department said in a statement. For a number of reasons, including new security enhancements, the USD 131 fee set on January 1, 2008 no longer covers the current, actual cost of processing non-immigrant visas, it added. Under the new schedule of fees, applicants for all visas that are not petition-based, including B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas and all student and exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas, will pay a fee of USD 140, the State Department said. Applicants for petition-based visas will pay an application fee of USD 150.
Source: PTI